Machine to machine (M2M) or machine type (MTC) communications may be used synonymously, and may be defined as communications initiated by the machine, to communicate with either other machines or with humans. Applicable network topologies may include wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU)-WTRU direct communications which may be used for coverage extension. WTRU-WTRU direct communications may be referred to as peer-to-peer communications. These communications may be used to increase network robustness by providing an alternative path for connectivity.
In typical cellular protocols, a WTRU that is either in idle, disconnected or dormant state, may monitor the base station (BS) or relay station (RS) infrequently to determine if the WTRU needs to listen for a data transmission. This process may be referred to as paging. In order to minimize battery consumption and increase range, paging signals may be designed to be short.
M2M networks as defined above may differ from typical cellular networks in two ways. First, some subscribers may not be configured to decode, or may be out of range of BS or RS transmissions. These subscribers, however, must still be reached. Second, the number of subscribers in the cell could be very large.
Typical M2M networks do not support paging for a group of subscriber stations. Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus to support paging for group subscriber stations in M2M networks. It would also be desirable to extend the page to a WTRU that is out of the range of the BS or RS. It would also be desirable to reduce the relative overhead created by MAC messaging for small amounts of data at a time. This overhead may be, along with other signaling, associated with paging.